Authorship.— The author of this Gospel for Jewish readers must of course have been him self of Jewish descent. Nor is his use of the Greek language inconsistent with this, since the use of Greek was so widespread that in the 1st century Palestine must have been largely bi lingual. That he was a Palestinian Jew is mani fest from the whole tone of his work. The tone of his work is also such as to make it doubtful whether the author of the book as it now stands was himself an associate of Jesus in his ministry. While much of the material must go back to eyewitnesses, the author him self seems more remote. Accordingly the dif ficulty in the way of accepting the early and uniform tradition that the Apostle Matthew was the responsible author is increasingly felt. It is also generally recognized that the book does not have the unavoidable marks of being a translation, but shows that it must have been originally composed in Greek, while the early tradition was that Matthew composed his work in the ((Hebrew language," by which of course the Aramaic was meant, which had lung before replaced Hebrew in common use. It will re tain the substantial value of the tradition if it is held that Matthew was the author of u(:)." When the Marcan source was reworked to in clude the collection of discourses and other ma terial Which was due to Matthew, it would not be surprising to find his name attached to the whole work. Accordingly, while the direct au thorship by Matthew of the book in its pres ent form is still very commonly held, there is a perhaps increasing tendency among critics to connect only the eLogias document with the Apostle himself.
Date and Place of There is little dissent at present from the view that this Gospel was composed late in the seventh decade of the 1st century, presumably 65-68. As to the place of composition there is less agree ment. The material is Palestinian, but many feel a certain sense of detachment as if the author was not when he wrote amid the scenes which he describes. Of course this might be
true if written in some place in Palestine re mote from both Capernaum and Jerusalem; some Syrian city has been suggested, and even Alexandria has been thought not too remote, especially in view of its large Jewish and Jew ish-Christian population.
Authenticity and If the common view of Matthew's direct authorship is still to be accepted, then this Gospel as the work of an apostolic associate of Jesus must be trust worthy and valuable in the highest degree. If, on the other hand, the book is referred to an unnamed author who worked mainly on the basis of the Marcan and Logia documents, its trustworthiness and value will be impaired less than might at first be supposed. We must as sume the honesty of the compiler and editor, which indeed is everywhere manifest, and ac cording to the theory he was working on documents which embodied the common Chris tian tradition approved by many dis ciples who had seen Jesus face to face or which even had full apostolic authority. Such were presumably the Marcan source and most prob ably the Matthwan Logia, while the genealogy could have been drawn from public sources, and the tone of the infancy narratives is such as conclusively to guarantee their very early date. When all these facts are taken into ac count, it will appear that the latest criticism really confirms the often quoted saying of Re nan : ((The Gospel of Matthew, all things con sidered, is the most important book of Chris tianity the most important book that has ever been written.* McNeile, A. H., 'Gospel According to St. Matthew) (1915); Moffatt, James, (Introduction to the Literature of the New Testament) (1911); Plummer, Alfred, 'Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel Ac cording to St Matthew' (1910); Zahn, Theo dor, 'Introduction to the New Testament' (E. T., Vol. III, 1909).